Weather has to be important. Storms, waves, sunrise, sunsets, rain, lightning

[Mysticpuma]

Water and Weather. It's the Pacific! Storms, rain, god rays, sunsets, sunrise.

 

swells in the water, water that looks epic

 

Thunder, Rain and Lightning too!

 

 

[Barnacles]

1 minute ago, Mysticpuma said:

Water and Weather. It's the Pacific! Storms, rain, god rays, sunsets, sunrise.

 

swells in the water, water that looks epic

 

Thunder, Rain and Lightning too!

 

 

Absolutely.

This is why I'm looking forward to this so much. In flight sims before, the enemy is the other side's planes/AAA. The BIG enemy should be the elements. If they nail the environment this will be so much more than anything that's gone before!

 

[Barnacles]

The sea is such a hostile environment.

 

[HerrMurf]

Yes and no.

I want to see dynamic weather within reason. I've seen other posts asking for real time weather, sea state six, and winds that affect wave direction. While that is all good for a modern sim, I don't see it being either realistic or necessary in a CFS. Firstly, the development cost would be somewhere between large and astronomical. Secondly, what does real time weather or sea state six have to do with 1941/42 air combat? The WWII air war was largely fought in good to middling weather. In terrible weather the aircraft would be lashed, aircrew would be below decks, while the rest of the fleet would be buttoned down and puking their guts out. WWII pilots are simply not flying in the majority of the above poor weather videos. I know the sea state can have a significant affect on navigation but much of this would simply be either eye candy or more useful to a surface sim.

I want boats and seaplanes to interact with the water in a convincing way. Landing on a rolling deck should be white knuckle inducing. I want weather to look somewhere between very good to excellent and be reasonably accurate to how it was during actual operations - be an obstacle to locating targets, contributing to the fog of war, forcing course deviations, etc. I also want to be able to set the weather to the degree, or maybe more, we could in our last combat sim. Dynamic, yes - where it comes to convincing and changing weather from a piloting perspective. Dynamic, no - where the expectation is bordering on a meteorological sim.

I'd rather the development dollars are spent on fluid dynamics and how our AC interact with the air. There is a limited budget and there are more important things than going overboard on weather - especially in the initial release. It's not MSFS and I don't expect, or even want, that level of weather detail in a combat flight sim.

Edited May 27, 2023 by HerrMurf

[Props]

I agree with you HerrMuff to some extent that we will want to see a mix of weather and no one likes to fly in really nasty stuff within a CFS. And real world weather, if it is based on modern weather patterns, like say today's current weather patterns in Pacific, would not be helpful or realistic to pursue by the devs. This isn't going to MSFS 2020.

But I have to point out that aircrews in all theaters, especially the PTO flew in some really horrendous weather even carrier aircrews. I have spent a lot of time researching and reading about the air war in the SW PTO and there's plenty stories about it. The IJN leaders (those that survived) estimated that weather was the leading cause of lost aircraft and crews by far over operational and combat losses. The early '42 carrier raids by Fletcher and Halsey were smacked hard by weather and heavy seas, especially Fletchers TF but they were putting up CAPs and scouts all the same from pitching decks and in hard rains. I read one instance where a fighter pilot had a hard time seeing the deck officer on takeoff and could not see the end of the flight deck at all and wasn't sure where he was right after he left deck, on the water or in the air, as he couldn't see squat. 

New Guinea was particularly heinous. Crews from Port Moresby would take off at O-dark thirty to get over the Owen Stanley mountains early to beat the midday thunderstorms. A lot of planes flew into mountains, or just got lost and disappeared all due to weather.

I don't think anyone here who flies CFS sims are going to want to see weather of that sort and a lot of it would definitely turn some folks off, but the occasional rainsquall, or thunderhead to skirt around would not bother me. To see a carrier slip into a rainsquall to hide, just like happened in the real battles, would be cool. It would just enhance the immersion for me as I prefer to fly as full real as possible immersing myself in the reality of what flying in WW2 was really like. Or at least as close as we can get in a computer generated facsimile of it.   

[Gambit21]

What we need, is something we haven't seen yet in either of the 2 major combat sims....and that is weather system/cloud boundaries. 

Right now clouds in IL2 and DCS are basically a procedurally generated shader that covers the entire map. Fine for most purposes, but not realistic and not appropriate for the PTO especially. We need the ability to have for instance, one part of the map in the clear, while another part of the map is socked in under a cloud bank. 

This way you can have the fleet of either side hiding under the weather etc...very relevant for Midway operations, both historical and "what if" 

[wheelsup_cavu]

13 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

We need the ability to have for instance, one part of the map in the clear, while another part of the map is socked in under a cloud bank. 

On that point we can definitely agree. 😎

 

Wheels

[Boom]

Although not a combat sim, FSX does variable weather extremely well. And has the ability for 'real' weather to be imported into the sim.
That would be a real buzz.

[BornToBattle]

In so far as weather goes as an injector, what if you had options? Something like “historical”, “live weather” or perhaps with slider options styled as “user defined”? I have no clue as to map size, depth of whether the devs are willing to reproduce so I’m just spitballing suggestions here.

[Trooper117]

Historical weather conditions if known for any given battle...

[Habu]

15 hours ago, Boom said:

Although not a combat sim, FSX does variable weather extremely well. And has the ability for 'real' weather to be imported into the sim.
That would be a real buzz.

I agree with that.

Having the choice of the weather like we have in FS2020 will be a must-have.

[rowdyb00t]

On 5/28/2023 at 5:42 PM, Gambit21 said:

What we need, is something we haven't seen yet in either of the 2 major combat sims....and that is weather system/cloud boundaries. 

Right now clouds in IL2 and DCS are basically a procedurally generated shader that covers the entire map. Fine for most purposes, but not realistic and not appropriate for the PTO especially. We need the ability to have for instance, one part of the map in the clear, while another part of the map is socked in under a cloud bank. 

This way you can have the fleet of either side hiding under the weather etc...very relevant for Midway operations, both historical and "what if" 

Definitely do-able. Just not something that was focused on in the others. 

[Mysticpuma]

3 hours ago, rowdyb00t said:

Definitely do-able. Just not something that was focused on in the others. 

That would be fantastic to see, just the beauty of them and the thoughts that "that's coming our way!" as you are 20 mins out from a carrier deck or landing strip. 

[Mysticpuma]

 

I have to say, when they introduced the new Cloud technology into BoX it really impressed me (visually). 

Never flew a mission in rain, snow or thunderstorms in BoX which given today's processing power was a bit disappointing. 

I hope to see these when Combat Pilot becomes available. 

[BlitzPig_EL]

I have scattered rain in a couple DF missions I made for BoX.

[Habu]

On 6/8/2023 at 9:18 AM, Mysticpuma said:

 

I have to say, when they introduced the new Cloud technology into BoX it really impressed me (visually). 

Never flew a mission in rain, snow or thunderstorms in BoX which given today's processing power was a bit disappointing. 

I hope to see these when Combat Pilot becomes available. 

it depends of the mision builder if he activated or not the dynamic rain in the mission.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Habu

[Nickkyboy99]

In my opinion, War Thunder's stormy weather setting nails it perfectly in terms of sea roughness - it offers a balance which feels realistic without being overwhelming, allowing ships to sail through it convincingly. Obviously waves can be absolutely massive, but accurately simulating a ship's interaction with them as it drops down from a high wave is probably challenging to do, and it might not be feasible to implement in a flight sim if it requires too much work and effort. I remember several years ago, War Thunder stormy weather setting featured larger waves, but at times, the entire ship would submerge and then reappear as if nothing had happened, and it looked.. pretty bad and unrealistic. However, in the current version, shown the in the video below, they have scaled back the intensity and it looks much better.

But since CP will be running on the UE5 engine... I am extremely hyped! 👀

[Major Lee]

Weather and water should be looking good with the UnReal Engine driving this; I am very optimistic. I am really looking forward to some serious realism from this sim. I remember when Thirwire put dynamic wind into the "First Flight The Wright Experience" sim they developed with Birhle Engineering. Dynamic wind was a big deal to implement because they were then able to simulate the Wright Gliders in-game properly. Now look at what the current 'state of the art' is; just fantastic progress!

[343KKT_Kintaro]

On 4/4/2024 at 12:18 AM, Nickkyboy99 said:

However, in the current version, shown the in the video below, they have scaled back the intensity and it looks much better.

 

 

 

Well, please let me disagree with that, these war ships on this video should be more intensely tossed about by those quite violent waves. Not realistic to me, not on the above video, but "Combat Pilot" still is under development and will most likely look differently, more realistic... I hope...

 

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

That's hilarious.  An old USN "standard" type super dreadnought battleship, in pre WW2 configuration in the carrier's escort group.  The USN standards could barely make 21 knots in calm seas, and were never used with the fast carriers because they were too slow